We obtained the results of the 256 regular-season NFL games from the 2006 season and entered the data into a spreadsheet, shown at the bottom of Figure 7.30 (see the file NFL Ratings 2006.xlsx). (Some...

We obtained the results of the 256 regular-season NFL games from the 2006 season and entered the data into a spreadsheet, shown at the bottom of Figure 7.30 (see the file NFL Ratings 2006.xlsx). (Some of these results are hidden in Figure 7.30 to conserve space.) The teams are indexed 1 to 32, as shown at the top of the sheet. For example, team 1 is Arizona, team 2 is Atlanta, and so on. The first game entered (row 6) is team 25 Pittsburgh versus team 17 Miami, played at Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh won the game by a score of 28 to 17, and the point spread (home team score minus visitor team score) is calculated in column J. A positive point spread in column J means that the home team won; a negative point spread indicates that the visiting team won. Our goal is to determine a set of ratings for the 32 NFL teams that most accurately predicts the actual outcomes of the games played.

Objective To use NLP to find the ratings that best predict the actual point spreads observed.